


A different shade of warmth

by mareen



Category: Harsh Realm
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:55:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareen/pseuds/mareen





	A different shade of warmth

February  
Somewhere in South Dakota  
Harsh Realm

After all those months, the days have become like one. Something like a single long day spend with doing nothing but this ongoing driving and fighting for food and water and gas and survival, paused by some time of short resting.

Pinocchio doesn't talk much lately. There's a grunting, whenever he agrees or disagrees and it's a question of really listening to him to get what he means. But I am getting good at that by now because I do can decipher his grunts by now. I have to. There is no-one but him and me now that Florence took Dexter and went back to the sisters to protect them from Santiago.

March will probably come and go without her back. Pinocchio expects Florence for April and I asked him how she'll find us then. But all he did was smiling and saying "She will." And he's right. She will find us somehow. I don't know how she does it, just like I don't know how she can cure wounds and diseases just by touch. But those are the secrets, the wonders, that make Harsh Realm what it is. Between all those darkness in this world, there are bright and shiny lights, too, and Florence is one of those.

So maybe she will be back with us in spring when the sisters are able to change quarters regularly again. But right now it's still freezing cold and it's snowing all the time. They are stuck in their winter camp, hiding away from the killers after them, while we, Pinocchio and me, are still on the go, still driving and searching for a way to win the Game and kill Santiago, to finally get out of here. And I have no idea how we are going to do that, out here in this nothingness.

There's not a sound around us, just the one of the car, that ongoing humming of the car's engine. Nothing to do but staring out of the window.

It's snowing, like it does for two whole days now, and the sun has vanished behind clouds, leaving everything in a greyish twilight. It's freezing cold. The car's heater is broken for a while now, and everything Pinocchio and I tried to make it work again was a failure, so all I can do is blowing warm breath against my clasped hands. Out of the corner of my eyes I can see Pinocchio, giving me a short glance.

He hardly ever lets me take over driving for him lately either. It is strange that while he doesn't seem trust me anymore with a machine, at the very same time he would probably always trust me with his life. It's one of the things about Pinocchio I may never really understand.

He unsuccessfully tries hiding a small grin.

"Cold?"

"You bet," I answer. "I hate that. Always have."

"Why don't you get one of the blankets? Get warm. Take a nap."

Pinocchio lifts his brows mockingly and stares back at the street, trying to make me feel as if he isn't touched at all by the cold. He is slowing down the car by now because it's snowing that hard we can hardly see anything but a veil made of white snow-flakes. It feels as if it's getting even colder than it already is, too. I pull up my shoulders in a useless try to make my body as small as possible and fight the cold.

Beside me in his seat, Pinocchio shudders just slightly. Little puffs of air mark his shallow breathing. His cheeks are bright red, but his nose has a more white-ish colour and he looks just deadly tired, as if he'll fall asleep behind the steering wheel every moment.

One of the things I learned about Pinocchio within the past few months is that he won't say a thing. Pinocchio will just go on driving and driving. He will tell me to get one of our blankets and to take a nap and he will watch over me, while I'm sleeping, because he believes I'm someone they call "The One", someone who just cannot die, someone who has to be protected by any means. But he won't tell that he's cold and would like, for once, sleep in a warm place, in front of a fire, not in the car and buried under layers of clothes and sheets, pressed up against me to share body heat. Just like me, Pinocchio really needs some really decent sleep and the rest it would give him, the new energy. But he just won't say a thing, because that's just not who Pinocchio is. Pinocchio grunts and he bitters and he screams and shoots and fights, but he would never for once acknowledge a little weakness like feeling cold and tired. Sometimes, Pinocchio has to be protected from himself.

"There was a house we passed," I say, "A bit down the street. It looked deserted."

"So what?" he answers, without taking his eyes off the street. His lips are in a angry blue colour and the skin has split from the cold. Involuntarily my hand twitches and I have to fight to make them stay in my lap. They want to touch the broken skin, take care of it. I'd wish we'd have something to treat it, something I could apply to them to make it better. If I don't do it, no-one will. And I want to do it, want to touch them, have been for a while now.

"We could make a fire and spend the night there," I say. "It'll be warm. - Come on, Pinocchio. We can still freeze to death in the car tomorrow."

He grunts.

I am quiet.

He gives me a quizzical look.

I just look back at him.

It's a game between us, even if neither of us would ever admit that.

The game is him, grunting disapprovingly or saying something entirely annoyed and me, staring at him. Him frowning then. Me, still staring. The expression in his eyes changes then usually, but that subtle, you would miss it if you don't look very closely. He hates being soft, and he always tries to fight it. But he does get soft on me when we play the game, and it does show in his eyes. He isn't as hard as he would like to make everyone else, and himself, believe.

He twists his lips now to show his disapproval. But his eyes are softening, just as they always do.

"I am cold," I repeat. "And tired."

"Oh for heaven's sake," he murmurs at last. "We don't have time for making big breaks." But he slows down the car, then turns it and speeds back up the way we came. "Tell me where that thing was already."

He sounds annoyed with me, but his eyes are still soft. I look at him for another moment, then turn towards the side-window and look outside.

Besides me, I can hear Pinocchio yawning.

"Stop smiling, Hobbes," he suddenly grunts.

I decide to grin instead. Sometimes, I just like to annoy him big time.

XXX

What I saw us passing is a wooden cabin. Very small, with only a sleeping and living room full of broken interior and a fireside, and another room that must have been a kitchen once because there are still rests of a kitchen sink in there and some parts of the plumbing, full of ice now from the cold. But except of that the cabin looks dry to me.

Once inside, I shudder a bit and push the snow off my body, and besides me Pinocchio is doing the same. We both had drawn our weapons before moving inside. The cabin looked deserted from the outside, but you never know in Harsh Realm. It could have been as good as full of other people trying to protect themselves from the snow. But there's no-one in here but us.

"Looks as if a fight happened," I say to Pinocchio, pointing at the broken interior.

"Or a plundering," he answers. He walks around, touches the wooden walls and knocks on it then. "It's still good. Hardly any moisture. Whoever lived here isn't gone for long." Pinocchio bends and touches the broken wooden chairs and the table, too. "Dry. Good for a fire," he adds then while looking at me with a half-smile. "Think you can get our things inside while I'm making us one?"

xxx

I don't know if I would have made it that long in Harsh Realm without Michael Pinocchio. It isn't just that he's always watching my back. It's also the mere thought of having someone by your side, someone alive, someone to talk to. Someone to trust.

In the Real World, Sophie was that person to me, in here, in Harsh Realm, it's Pinocchio. Without him, I'd probably be long dead, or even worse than that, I would have given up.

I wonder sometimes if he knows that, if he has any idea how much I need him in here. I don't think so. Sometimes I am having the feeling, Pinocchio has no idea at all what his real measure is, that his` goes way beyond the measure I have in the eyes of the people. *That* is just a thought, a symbol of hope for a better future, something to hold on to in this darkness that surrounds us all. Pinocchio`s measure is an whole different one, it is something real, not just the idea of something to maybe come one day. The truth is, if I am going to make an end to Harsh Realm, like Pinocchio and Florence seem to think, Pinocchio is my trail leading to that ending.

XXX

He is breaking the last chair into pieces when I am finally done with taking our property inside. The fire is already burning and it's starting to get warm in the cabin. I leave the blankets in one corner of the room and turn to the food.

"Peas or... peas, Pinocchio? What will it be?" I grin when he just grunts.

Three weeks ago we found an untouched trunk with a load of can-food, down in a canon. The driver was dead in the front seat, all left of him being a half-way skeleted body. God knows how long he had been there and why no-one ever searched for him. I made Pinocchio helping me bury the driver, then we turned to the truck again. I hadn't seen Pinocchio as happy as like when we opened it and found the cans for a long, long time. For a while we were living very well from what was in the cans but by now, everything that's left of it are peas. Pinocchio hates peas.

I get a pot and open two cans, then start heating the food up over the open fire.

A few feet beside me, Pinocchio is stacking up the wood. He is licking over the broken skin of his lips with the tip of his tongue. For a moment, I stare at that, at the movement, the tongue, slipping out and touching. I stand up and walk over to him, before I really know what I'm doing.

"It must hurt."

He turns half on his heels and looks up at me, frowning. "Hurt?"

"You lips." I lift my hand towards his face and for a brief moment my fingertips linger on the broken, white skin, that's now a bit wet from his saliva. "You are... you are licking them because of the cold. Licking just makes it worse. You should..."

Briskly, he pushes my hand away, then he turns away from me and towards the wood-pile again, just staring at it. For another moment, my arm just hangs there in the air, looking ridiculous, before I let it go and push my hand into my pockets.

"I'm not a baby, Hobbes. I'm not someone you have to watch over. So back off."

He smashes another piece of wood on the pile. The movement is harsh and angry.

We are doing fine most of the time. But lately again and again, either I touch him out of nowhere, or he just suddenly snaps. Not his usual snapping, that short and biting and harsh words he always does towards other people. It's not that disapproving "Now what again?" biting he only uses on me either, the one that comes and goes in seconds. It's different. He snaps at me and then he turns away from me as if he is unable to bear seeing my face any longer. His teeth are pressing together then and sometimes his hands shake, too. He never did that before. He never turned away from me and I don't know why he is doing it now. I don't know what is going on between us.

I feel his eyes on my back when I walk to the fire to have a look at the peas.

xxx

We eat side by side in front of the fire. Pinocchio hasn't talked to me since I touched him and he snapped, so there's just silence now except of the slight crackling of the fire and the sounds of our spoons on the plates.

Outside, the sun has gone down. Not that it had made a difference before. The cabin's windows have been nailed up by the former inhabitants. But now, the light that was still falling through little cracks here and there are gone, too. It could even have been nice that way, if it weren't for the stillness.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I cast him a glance. He's staring into the fire, the spoon forgotten on his plate and I open my mouth to say something, to make this be over and forgotten, but he is first. He puts his plate down with a swift movement and is up and standing and looking down at me.

"Pinocchio, I..." I start, but he stops me with a shake of his head.

"Where's the other one. That big pot, or whatever it was, we found?"

"Outside in the car," I answer.

"Would you like to wash?" he says with a slight smile.

Frowning I just watch him putting on his jacket. "What? What are you up to, Pinocchio?"

"Getting us some water. - We should take the possibility here. Who knows when we'll get another chance to get clean."

He's out before I get to say another word. It's Pinocchio`s way of offering me "peace".

XXX

I wonder sometimes how Pinocchio really feels about me.

Pinocchio is a strange man. Half of the days of his life he is working on his self-installed image as a cold and unmoved semi-mercenary who is working for everyone as long as it is getting him money.

Most people, and Pinocchio himself, might even believe in that image. But what they always seem to miss when they judge him by it is the fact of why Pinocchio would fight for everyone with enough money: He is doing it to be able to fight Santiago. And the point about that is, that even if we would defeat Santiago one day, it wouldn't buy Pinocchio anything. Quite the opposite. Until today, he didn't tell me what is really waiting for him in the Real World, but I am having an idea, and if that idea is right, defeating Santiago would at the same moment destroy Pinocchio.

To me that makes Pinocchio one of the most unselfish persons I ever met. Someone who puts himself behind for the good of a greater cause, someone who is ready to go all the way, no matter what.

But to Pinocchio that also makes *me* the one who will fulfil that greater purpose of destroying Santiago, the very same thing, Pinocchio is living for right now. So is that why we are still together now? Is that why he is not moving from my side? Because I will fulfil what he is after?

I can't really figure out Pinocchio. When I met him, he was on his way of leaving the Harsh Realm-version of the United States to find his luck in its South America. At first, I forced him to stay with me (at least as much as one can "force" Pinocchio to do anything), but then he was very free to leave... and he didn't. He stayed with me and he fights with me.

But I can't come up with an explanation of why everything suddenly changed for him.

Is he just with me because I'm that "One"? Is that why he is protecting me? Or is it because he likes me? Is he with me because he believes in the fight and because he is my friend? And if that's the case, why *did* he suddenly start believing in it?

What is that thing between us, that binds us together?

Is it the greater cause or is it the friendship? Or neither.

XXX

I have put more wood into the fire to heat it up a bit when Pinocchio finally returns with the bigger pot, filled with white, cold snow. He brings cold air with him inside and some more snow that slowly moves from his hair and shoulders and shoes down to the ground of the cabin where it turns into little puddles of water immediately.

"Damn, it's cold out there," he shudders. "Freezing. But I've got snow, so we can get warm water and we can wash. I stink."

XXX

It may be strange, but I like his smell. It's Pinocchio-smell. Sweat, dirt, oil, the natural smell of his skin... all in all, a lot of things mixing together into `him`.

Sometimes, when we sleep in the car together, under the blankets, I turn my face towards him on purpose, and I sniff on him.

The first time it happened it was an accident. An accidental turning towards him that lead to my face being pressed against his chest. The things I felt that very first time I smelt him as strongly as then was one of the most terrifying things ever happen to me. The heat that went through my whole body, the warmth of feeling safe.

Since that first time I did it again and again and every time I did it, I came to like his smell a little bit more.

XXX

"You stink, too, by the way", he grins. His voice makes me snapping out of the staring at him and I give him a low half-laugh.

I'm making the beds ready while Pinocchio stores the pot over the fire. He just stays there, kneeing, and watches the snow slowly turn into water. His back is to me, so he can't watch me while I make the beds.

I've got them around 10 feet away from each other, giving me as well as Pinocchio more free room than we had for weeks in the car. I suppose Pinocchio would like that. For a second, I stare at the two bed-rolls, then I turn and cast a glance at Pinocchio. He is still not looking at me, but instead has his flat hand near over the water in the pot, testing the heat of it that way.

After a moment of thinking, I bend down and pull my own bed-roll nearer to his, just a few feet, but enough to make me wondering again about what I'm actually *doing* here. I frown, then cast another glance over to Pinocchio`s form in front of the fire.

He has turned on his heels and is soundlessly looking at me. I look back at him, waiting for another biting from him, waiting for him to just snap at me or hit me.

For another moment, there is just silence. Then...

"You first or me?"

In the end, he doesn't wait for me to finally come out of my motionless staring and answer him, but instead starts stripping out of his clothes without another word.

XXX

Pinocchio isn't that much taller than I am. We are nearly of the same height, but he *looks* bigger than me. His shoulders are broader, just like his chest, there are more muscles on his body, the arms and the legs. His moves, when he runs or is just standing, are smooth and controlled. He is strong, stronger than me, his clothes are dark and much more military-like than mine and all of that "forms" his body into something that is screaming "soldier". On first sight, Pinocchio seems to be born one. He looks dangerous in his own kind of way.

Now that he is naked... naked he still looks strong and firm but also full of white skin. Soft skin, I suppose.

Our hands have touched on occasion whenever we passed something from one to the other. Brief touches and accidental ones. But I found out that his hands are soft on their backs that way. I suppose the rest of his skin is as soft as that. Maybe softer.

He cleans his body fast and efficient, like he does everything and after only moments, the warm water besides his feet starts turning greyish from the dirt coming off his body.

I don't want to watch him there, in front of the fire, shed off all of his clothes. I feel like a voyeur. But he has his back to me, so there is nothing that could force me to look away, except of my own bad conscience maybe.

We are both Military. We are used to be naked in front of other people, and we *have* been naked together before, so it wouldn't have been a big deal to wash together. But I'm glad right now, that we just have this one big pot and by that, only enough water for one of us at one time. We don't have to wash together that way. Instead, I pretend to still working on the bed rolls while he stands there with a cloth in his hand, scrubbing over that supposedly soft skin of his naked legs, and I watch him. I watch him.

I am not sure when this started to get out of hands. Maybe when he became the only one for me to trust or maybe it was when the cold in this world wasn't only attacking me from the outside anymore but from the inside, too, and the need for human touch started to become unbearable.

I stare at him, at his shoulders, how they move with him when he bends over to wash his arms, from his shoulder-blades down to his fingers, how they stretch and turn and just *move*, how the curve of his shoulders turns into his back and down even more...down and down to the lines of his bottom, the smooth curve, full of creamy white skin, ending in his strong legs and his feet.

It hurts to think of myself as that kind of a person, someone who would even go after his only and somehow best friend just because out of loneliness and cold. To come-on to him like that, something that could destroy everything we have, or maybe I am already doing that exactly...destroying what we have.

XXX

I wait until Pinocchio has put on most of his clothes back on, before I get the pot and take it outside, to fill it with new snow. Before I left, one look at his face told me that Pinocchio is immensely relieved from the tension he was carrying around for days now. The tiredness is still there, and more obvious than ever, but the lines around his eyes and mouth have lessened a bit.

After putting the pot on the fire, I turn to Pinocchio. He is standing in front of one of the windows, gazing out through one of the small cracks, his gun in hand.

"I take the first watch," I say.

His look has something between amusement and annoyance in it when he answers: "You are my hero." But he doesn't start arguing, he just leans his gun against the wall right beside his bed-roll and lies down on his back, his arms crossed behind his head. His eyes stay half-closed. But I can see that he has to fight to not fall asleep right away.

I get naked and start washing as fast as I can, my back turned to Pinocchio. The water isn't really hot, just lukewarm, but I don't want to wait any long, because this is better than anything we were having for a long, long time.

I was in similar situations like this in the real world. Stuck somewhere, wearing the same clothes for days, sometimes a week or two. After a while they start to smell, then they stain, in the end, they are filthy and you want nothing more but to burn them and scrub your body until your skin is red and scratchy. This is how I feel most of the time in Harsh Realm.

I rub my skin hard and fast, up and down my legs, up and down and up again, until the skin really looks red and it burns like hell. But in the end I feel clean, cleaner than I have for a long time. I even find it acceptable to get back into my old clothes.

When I look back at Pinocchio, he has one of his arms bend over his eyes and from out of his slightly open mouth, his breathing is deep and even. He is finally sleeping.

I take my place at the window, gun in hand, and start my watch.

XXX

I had intended to let Pinocchio sleep through the night and take over his watch, too, but his inner clock can't be cheated. No matter how tired he is, he always wakes up in the middle of the night, tips me on the shoulder and nods towards the bed-roll, so I can sleep a while. He is like a clock-work. This night is no different, only that he caught what I was intending to do somehow, for he just smirks at me when he points at my bed-roll with his thumb and whispers: "Nice try, Hobbes. Now go to sleep."

It's useless to try arguing with Pinocchio about this and even if it is just because he is right. I am deadly tired, too, suddenly, as if I haven't slept for days. I fall asleep in a matter of seconds.

XXX

The morning is warm, instead of cold and freezing as usual. I can't remember a morning I felt as good and rested like on this one in a long time. Sleepily, I stretch myself and refuse to open my eyes at first, until a boot hits me in the side. Not that much as to hurt me, but enough to make me sit up with a start.

"Rise and shine, Hobbes." His voice is grumpy and sounds pissed off.

I push the bed roll away and look up at him. Pinocchio is walking around in the cabin, from one end of it to the other and back again, now and then sticking the end of his gun into the burning fire with an angry twist of his arm.

"What is it?"

"We are snowed in," he grunts. "The snow was falling all through the night, the temperature has dropped a few degrees more, and there's a storm outside."

No wonder he is pissed.

"That means we are staying here for another day?"

"At least. I wouldn't put my hopes that high that we getting out of here tomorrow. We are fucking stuck."

I stand up and walk to the nailed up windows. Trough one of the cracks, I can look outside. All I see is white snow, whirling around in the storm. Icy cold comes through the crack and pushes against my faces, taking my breath away.

"But at least we are stuck in here and not outside somewhere in the car," Pinocchio keeps on, a bit more softly now. "We would be dead by now if we hadn't stopped at the cabin."

I smile more to myself than to him. The last sentence will be the only thing coming from Pinocchio about that I was right about staying here. It's okay for me. I know by now how to read between Pinocchio's lines.

I turn to him. "So now we are just waiting till it's over?"

"Yeah."

He start pacing again. "Fuck it. We can't afford staying at one place too long."

"I don't think anyone will search for us here. We are in the middle of nowhere."

"You never know with Santiago," he frowns.

XXX

I nearly died once.

Sarajewo, 1994.

I thought, I was dead.

They say, if it comes to death, every person goes through different stages of emotion.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

Not in this specific order... but you are supposed to go through all of it, one way or the other, sometimes faster, sometimes slower.

When I pulled the mattress over both of us, Mel Waters and me, I was still in Bargaining. But one minute later, when I held onto him and pressed both of us down into the cold mud, I was in Acceptance already. I knew we were going to die. There was no chance that we would get out of this alive. They were bombing the buildings right over us. No-one can survive something like that. I wouldn't see my parents again, I wouldn't see my home again. I would never marry, have children, grow old and die with my family at my side. But that was okay. Because I had gone through the "Stages in the Acceptance of Death" within a handful of minutes.

Surviving was a shock of some sorts. I was dead. And then I wasn't.

Death and Rebirth in a matter of moments.

XXX

"Tell me about her," he says. For a moment, he stops staring out of the window and looks at me.

I know exactly whom he is talking about, but anyway I answer: "She?" just to drag out the moments until I have to think about the answer.

"Your `girl`. Sophie....Are you still ´talking` to her? I haven't seen you doing it lately."

"How are you doing that?" I answer. "Seeing me `think` like you do. How do you notice?"

"Your face, Hobbes. Nice little baby-face. Can't keep a single secret to itself." He doesn't look at me. "You`re just too honest. - Too open."

I lie on the bed-roll, my arms crossed behind my head and close my eyes. I want to say something entirely different. But everything that comes out is: "And there I thought I had this big poker face."

He starts laughing loud, then just keeps chuckling to himself even when he says: "You didn't answer my question."

"What was the question?" I turn to my side and into his direction, still not looking, still keeping my eyes closed. I can feel his presence. Even if he wouldn't say a word, keep very still and wouldn't even breath... I would still feel him around me. I always would.

"Don't start shitting me, Hobbes."

For a long while, I do not say a word.

"No", I whisper finally. "No I don't. - I stopped doing that a long time ago."

We do not talk for hours.

XXX

Thinking about it, Death and Rebirth happened to me not just once, but two times.

I "died" and came back in Sarajewo. I "died" and came back when they sat me on that chair in that room and made me listen to that voice and made me watch that movie. That advertisement. They killed me in the Real World and brought me back in Harsh Realm.

I went into Stages of Acceptance again. Death and Rebirth again. An Initiation. The old life dies. The new life starts, and the new life includes Michael Pinocchio and hardly anything else. Everything changes. I do, too.

I'm not making any sense.

And who am I talking to anyway?

XXX

You are dreaming. you are dreaming. you are dreaming. wake up. wake up. wake up. wake

Up.

I sit with a start, and immediately start rubbing my eyes hard to not have to acknowledge their harsh burning.

"Glad you are back, sleepyhead." Pinocchio's bemused voice.

I sound hoarse when I answer. Hoarse and like an old man. "I didn't sleep that long."

"No, you didn't." He is still bemused and still sitting by the window, with his gun in hand. "Only maybe an hour."

"Sorry."

"For not sleeping that long? - Boy, Hobbes, you are not *that* a pain in the ass."

"For falling asleep in the first place."

He gives me a short look, then stands up and stretches himself.

"It's not as if I needed your help to write a manifesto or something. - You look like crap. Bad dream?"

"Yeah."

He nods. No further questions, no further mentioning of the subject. He is dreaming bad, too, sometimes. Tosses and turns in the car, whimpers, kicks me in the leg and wakes me up that way in the middle of the night. He knows he is doing it. He knows that I know. But we are not talking about it, because he wouldn't want to. Wouldn't want to show me any weaknesses. So I am not discussing his dreams and he is not discussing mine. He wouldn't want to know that I'm dreaming about him dying anyway.

"You hungry, Pinocchio?" I say after a long yawn.

XXX

We eat in silence again, but this time it's a friendly silence, without the angry undertone from the day before. The aggressiveness that had been around Pinocchio lately is gone suddenly, and my own impulse to touch him, to watch him, is buried in the deepest depths of my conscience. It's easy to be around him again, everything is normal. Like it had been in the past, in those first weeks after we met and had gotten over then the initial uncomfortability around each other.

Pinocchio is giving me an half-annoyed look over his plate. "God, I hate these fucking peas. As soon as it has stopped snowing I'm out there finding us a rabbit or whatever and shoot the damn thing so we can eat it."

"You want to spend a bullet on something to eat?" I'm half-way laughing at him because it's Michael Pinocchio who's telling me that. The same man who once told me that as long as he has a 80 percent chance of survival, right now he'd rather kill someone with his hands so he doesn't have to spend a bullet. Bullets cost money.

He is grinning now. "Fuck yeah. - Wouldn't you?"

"In a second and without a second though actually."

"And that's why I adore you so much."

The moments the words are out, he stops chewing on his peas. I watch him take a deep breath, and every humour is gone out of his face. He puts his plate down on the ground and stares at it for a long while and I realise that out of whatever reason, something strange and serious is going to happen right now.

"Look", he whispers without looking at me. "In the real world..."

I audible catch my breath. The peas are rolling around on the plate I'm balancing on my knees. I should put it down, put I can't. I can't move.

"In the real world, a few years ago...something happened to me. An accident", he let's go a harsh, hard laugh. "A fucking `accident` during a fucking `job` I did for the military who doesn't give a damn about me. - And that accident...well, what's left of my body is...nothing but a mess. - I'm a freak, Hobbes. Out there, I'm a fucking freak who can't even stand on his own two feet."

Desperate, he jumps up. The gun at his side falls to the ground with a crash and he starts walking from one end of the room to the other, and back to me again, talking all the way.

"He can't walk. He can't use his hands. He's blind even. He's a nothing. No use to anyone even more. Who would want a thing like that? - Hell, I wouldn't."

With a swift movement of his feet, he sends his plate full of not-eaten peas flying into the burning fire.

"I fucking wouldn't want a thing like that," he whispers. Then he grabs his gun and walks over to the door. "I'll get us something to eat."

He's gone before I can say a word.

XXX

I will never forget how happy she looked like when Sophie showed me her wedding dress. The way she smiled and used to make me smile. How she could do that with a single word. I will never forget the plans we made.

She still comes to me in my dreams sometimes. I never remember what the dream were all about...but I always remember she was there. She always will be.

And it hurts to think that deep inside I have long ago given Sophie up. Longer than I have even realised myself. And how easy it was actually.

XXX

The moment Pinocchio comes back in, I can say how sorry he is for his outbreak. He doesn't say anything at first and doesn't really look at me. He just gives me an already skinned and still damping rabbit he has shoved on a stick, then goes back outside and cleans his bloodied hands in the white snow.

"I was actually planning to be calm and really dignified when I tell you about it."

I get the stick to stay put after a moment, just so the rabbit is right over the fire and not burning away in it, then turn around to look up at him.

"It's okay."

"No. No, it's not. I wanted you to know about it for so long. But then I still get...`emotional`. - You've got a right to know what keeps me in this world. I want you to know what you are getting yourself...into. - In here I've got some kind of future, Hobbes. Even if it's fucked up. Out there...I'm nothing but a cripple who used to be a soldier."

"I figured something like that." I stand up and come up right in front of him, right in front of his face. But he is not moving away, and so I am not either.

"Yes... but I wanted you to *know*."

"Why?"

Still none of us moves. I make a fist to keep my hands from touching him.

"Because I want us to be honest. - I need us to be. - Because you are the only one I trust."

"What about Florence?" I whisper.

"Florence is a friend."

"And what am I?"

I look down when I feel his hand on me, brushing over my belly, very softly. When I look up, he is, too, so that we are staring into each other's faces again.

"I still keep on wondering." His voice falters.

He moves forward hesitantly and kisses me half-way on my lips and half-way on my cheek very carefully and gently. But before he can try to back away I grab his face and turn him back to me to kiss him on the mouth. Not gently at all.

XXX

When I met Michael Pinocchio, I was a jerk. And I was a baby. Looking at it from today's POV, I have no idea how I even survived as a soldier the last few years before I came to Harsh Realm. Maybe luck had a good much to do with it. Or maybe it was fate.

Fate.

Leading to.

...this...

XXX

"Hobbes," he whispers.

His hands under my shirt, thumbs pressing and rubbing the skin, brushing over my nipples. I am arching my back and push my hips against him and I can feel Pinocchio pushing back at me. And he is laughing down at me, low in the back of his throat, and he is smiling a bit, so I come up with my head and kiss him again until I can feel the smile vanishing off his face. His tongue is moving in my mouth, moving against mine, touching it, and playing with it, imitating the movements of the rest of his body against me.

My hands...drawing fast circles on his back, as if not knowing where to touch first and I can feel his muscles moving with the movements of his fingers on my naked skin. Against my mouth, Michael Pinocchio is softly moaning, making his lips vibrate against mine. Strange feeling. Strange feeling...but god...

I'm twisting us around, feet tangled together and push my groin hard against his, grinding down. Sounds from the back of my throat this time. Pinocchio is gasping. He pushes me up a bit and his hands leave my body and start working on the zipper of his pants, trying to get it down. He is shaking and the zipper isn't giving away a bit.

"Fuck." Pure frustration in his voice, and I am pushing myself against him again and he swears at *me* this time instead of his pants. I feel like laughing and groaning at the same time and this is just not going *fast* enough, so I settle myself in a sitting position on is legs, moving my groin softly against him while pulling my shirt up over my head.

Words, hardly understandable but I do get "tease" and "fucking", over and over again and that *makes* me laugh now and he glares up at me with dilated pupils. Then the finally open zipper and his legs, starting to kick his pants off. I pull myself up for a second to help him, then turn to my own clothes.

Naked skin, finally. And the smell. Better than in the car when pressed up against him. Much, much better. I bend down and start kissing down his chest, holding his hips down, my fingers digging into the skin, taking him in finally. The smell, overwhelming everything else. Pinocchio's fingers digging into my scalp, urging me on. My own and his ragged breathing filling the room.

I move back up his body before he climaxes and press my lips to his, kissing him fiercely, rubbing myself against him until he pushes both of us to our sides and, still kissing, lines our cocks together and starts jerking us off.

"Open your eyes...open your eyes...Tom."

I'm face to face with him. Sweat all over his face, sticking his hair together and plastering it to his brows. And his eyes...dark and deep and again, I move towards him and kiss him on the mouth. But this time, my eyes stay open, and then I follow his gaze down our bodies to his hand around both of our cocks, moving swiftly back and forward. Groaning, I close my hand around his.

Moving with him.

XXX

"The rabbit is burned", I whisper. Lying on my stomach, I watch the dark smoke that is drafting through the room. Pinocchio's hand is on my back, his thumb lazily stroking my skin.

"Fuck the rabbit", he answers before he replaces his finger with his mouth and slowly starts licking. I squirm into the bed roll, but at the same time, have to chuckle.

"Fuck the rabbit?"

"hmmmmmm...."

More little licks and kisses and his fingers over my body to turn me around and on my back. His tongue moves into my naval, starting a small, nice rhythm.

"Yeah...maybe we should fuck the rabbit..."

I'm faltering.

XXX

When I wake up with at dawn, Pinocchio is back in his clothes and over at the fire, trying to rescue some of our food.

"The weather looks okay", he says without turning around. "It stopped snowing and the sun has come out. You ready to get back on the road?"

"Would it make a difference...?"

He looks at me shortly. "Not really."

"Well, I think I'm ready then."

"Good."

"Good."

He turns back to the rabbit.

XXX

I put the bed rolls together while outside in the cold Pinocchio is in the car and working on its heater. Now and then I can hear his swearing, the first words I've heard from him for hours. Michael Pinocchio is giving me the silent treatment. Not even a grunting to decipher.

I stack the bed rolls beside the door, move outside and stand a few feet beside Pinocchio, my arms crossed in front of my chest. I can do that for a while, watching him without saying a word. I have a lot of patience. Pinocchio, however, has not. He stops in the middle of his movement after only a few moments, takes a deep breath and without looking at me, says:

"What, Hobbes?"

"Just wondering what happened to fuck the rabbit."

He frowns, then gets out of the car and nearer to me. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Remember? Fuck the rabbit. Let's fuck each other instead."

Again, he frowns, but another, dawning, expression is coming up in his face, and he takes another step towards me.

"What do you expect me to do, Hobbes? - Hold your hand? Tell you I love you forever? Make google eyes and give you the moon as a token? My name is not Sophie, Tom."

I know he can see that I'm getting angry, really angry. But he just takes another step to me.

"And this is not a romantic trip to the woods", he says.

I stare at him, then finally give him a short nod and a "Whatever." and turn to get back into the cabin.

"Tom", he says calmly.

"What?"

"Would you want me to?"

I look at him, and it's me who is frowning this time. He on the other hand, has a small smile on his face.

"What?"

"Hold your hand. Make google eyes. The whole programme."

"I don't know," I answer. "Would you do it?"

"If you ask me very, very nicely." A grin this time. "And if no-one's looking."

"Fuck you." But I understand him now, even though sometimes his words are harder to decipher than his grunts.

Laughing he is back in the car, his legs somewhere outside, and trying to get to the probably broken cables. I want to go inside the cabin to get our things, then decide against it and go over to him. I only stop when I'm standing right beside him, our legs touching.

"I know you are not Sophie or anything near to who she is. And I don't want you to. - And whatever is with you out there... right now, Harsh Realm is `it` to me. - Nothing else matters. Not anymore."

He straightens up and looks at me for a moment, then, smiling softly, puts his hand on my neck and pulls me down to him.

The kiss is hot in the cold air of the morning. He kisses me open-mouthed, deep and lingering, his tongue playing with mine and when he pulls away for a moment I want to hold him...I don't want to let go. But instead of following my instinct, I untangle my hand from where I had grabbed his jacket and straighten up again. Freeing him, not me.

Pinocchio nods at me and I nod back.

"Think you can get me the small screwdriver from the trunk? I think I finally found the problem with that damn heater."

His head is back in the car and he's not really paying attention to me anymore. The thing that he really is interested right now is the car and getting it back to working properly, just so we won't freeze to death before we got a chance to kill Santiago.

"Yeah", I answer. "I think I can get you the screwdriver."

Just give me a second.


End file.
